jackson. my colleague also filling in, chris jansing, good to see you, my friend. president trump rides high on his approval ratings, across the country, rallying republicans two weeks before the elections, big name democrats showing up in key states to energize the resistance. >> we got to tell them who we are, what do we stand for? >> now is the time to fight for the best of who we are. >> president trump, we are not going backwards, we are going forwards as one people. >> let's get these people out of there, there's something wrong. they're cuckoo. the democrats don't care that a flood of illegal immigration is going to totally bankrupt our country. >> desperate measures.

those 7,000 latin-american migrants head to the united states as the president spreads conspiracy theories about who is among them. >> you see these people everywhere. you see these kids like nala here who's 12, and for her young brother and young sister over here, this journey towards a better life is only just beginning. and smoke and mirrors? sources show that khashoggie was killed by the saudi arabian crown prince. >> to make sure that you're transparent and to take this very seriously. good day, i'm chris jansing in for andrea mitchell on a day of political power players emphasizing the stakes and setting the tone really with

candidates from both parties. this week is looking like the trail you're actually used to seeing days before a presidential election. because you've got trump, obama, biden, all in critical battleground states, often the same ones, and all on the same mission, send a message that will resonate with the voters, enough to get them off their couches and out to the polls. we have our team of reporters. good to see all of you, the president's tweet this morning said it all, big night in texas, they have moved to a bigger venue, the lines in houston have been around the block since sunday afternoon, and the president's campaign blitz will put him on stage with the man he used to call lying ted cruz. >> it wasn't just the name calling, donald trump also

mocked the appearance of ted cruz's wife, suggesting that ted cruz's father was involved in the jfk assassination. so this rally is a turn around for both men. but ted cruz in order to win this election needs a rallied gop base. and nobody ral lie rallies the like president trump. it's nothing short of extraordinary, that a republican president has to go to a state like texas in order to shore up the campaign of a republican senator. texas has not elected a democrat state wide since 1994. but you've got ted cruz there with the slimmest of leads. so cruz starts off in houston and then heads to wisconsin sand then to illinois. he's going to implore his

supporters to vote for republicans. >> theflorida, florida, florida heck of gubernatorial debate. now you're at a tampa rally, featuring joe biden and the democratic senators. give us the lay of the land and what we're expecting to see there today, inside and outside of that hall. >> that's exactly right, chris, there's going to be a lot of noise behind me, the speakers are on stage getting the crowd primed for joe biden, for the democratic hope for governor, in the debate last night we knew these two candidates, ron desantis and andrew gillum were polar opposites on the spectrum.

you'll remember that ad that he ran with his kids, reading the art of the deal to his sons, but also he talked about president trump as a role model last night. >> do you think president trump is a good role model for the children of florida? >> jake, my wife and i were poking a little bit of fun at ourselves because of the way that campaign was going. i don't actually read the art of the deal to my son mason, he's a great kid, but that's not necessarily his cup of tea. i was really passionate about moving our embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem. he was right to move the embassy. i was there for the historic event, i know andrew doesn't support is that and doesn't think that that was right. >> i don't remember the question. >> whether president trump is a

role model for the children of america. >> that's what i thought, i got confused. no, he's not, donald trump is weak. >> for the folks behind me here, that's the kind of talk they want to hear, they want to hear someone who's going to stand up to president trump. they want somebody who's going to talk about health care. that's things that are important to florida voters that president trump doesn't have anything to do with directly. >> let's start with where alley is. do you believe that president tru trump can pull senator nelson across the finish line? >> i have some doubts about the

size of the margin in the cnn poll that just came out. the thing is that two things are working in nelson's gave. number one, the most important thing is that the panhandle just got hit with a devastating hurricane. and the second thing is that andrew gillum is going to pull a very, very strong african-american vote out. and every within of those, nelson is going to get an incredible percentage. but at the same time, and i was just in florida yesterday, governor scott has built a name for himself in terms of crisis management and it's -- this is going to be a really, really good race. but these other two factors are, i think, sort of -- may save nelson from what might very well be going down otherwise. >> and steve patterson, the democrats see an opportunity in

nevada, the party's superstar is there today. what can we expect from president obama when he's back on the trail? >> reporter: you've been talking about these heavy hitters. if you're talking about airline miles, you have to talk about nevada. we have had senator biden here, in a duelling -- to gin up support among millennials and latino voters. latino voters, only 15% of the democrats who voted in the midterms in 2014. roden and helder have been neck and neck since this race has gone on and there's no sign of it slows down as this continues. >> what do you think is going on there in texas for both of those

races? >> in senator cruz's situation, i don't think it has anything to do with president trump. ted cruz is like president trump a very polarizing figure. the governor is winning by 20 points. this is fairly unique to ted cruz. that nevada race is extremely close, i should back up to texas. i expect to see senator cruz win by 3, 4, 5, 6 points, underperforming, but it would be a real upset if the democrat won that. and we have not seen signs of the latino vote being terribly engaged until we had this nbc/"wall street journal" poll come out over the weekend and it sho shows an uptick of lat teaino

voters. i think it does kind of goose the republican base a little bit. but the thing is, in the fall, you typically see partisans go home, come back into their partisan folds. the fact is democrats never left the polls, they have been outraged ever since 2016. since then, republicans have been complacent. the kavanagh hearings did engage that republican vote. and so that i'm not sure the caravan itself is going to eek it up too much, because just in the last two weeks it's gone up a little bit. >> but does-- >> this nbc/"wall street journal" poll shows what we have seen as a rise in latino

interest. you need a microscope to see the turnout of latinos in 2016. and you ask yourself, what could president trump possibly said or done during the 2016 election that would motivate latino voters and yet it hardly went up at all. that's what we're going to be watching the next couple of polls, to see if it's the same as the nbc/"wall street journal" poll. >> there's a little bit of a different equation, i think this year, given the political circumstances that we're in. 2014 midterms had the lowest turnout in three decades. but 65% of registered voters say they have high interest in next month's election, that's the highest since 2006. what do you see in terms of voter turnout. for whom, which side?

>> i mean we have got two different elections this year, and one election is for the u.s. senate, and it is overwhelmingly in red, republican conservative states and the kavanagh thing really galvanized them. nine of the 13 closest senate races are states that trump carried. so the kavanagh fight galvanized the conservative republican vote in those states. but everything else is being fought more in the suburbs, and college educated white suburban women, as a group, they are on fire right now. that's where republicans have all kinds of problems and where the president really is an albatross around the necks of republican candidates in those suburban districts. >> and let me ask you finally, since the voting has started there and i think you're still waiting for joe biden to get on stage. what have you seen and what have you heard since you've been on

the ground? >> well, look, the things that we can track, early voting began today, 7:00 a.m. here in hillsborough county. and just down the street from where this rally is is a new polling place and the people who are working that poll say they expect high traffic. we have met some folks in the line who say they'll be going down the street after the rally to vote, one of the early speakers urged people to go down the street to the polling place right here near the rally. you have seen just over 900,000 ballots here in florida. republicans do have a slight lead in returning those ballots over democrats. but speaking to democrats, they're not overly worried about that, they're still pressing the pavement getting people out, either early or on election day.

and coming up, some developing news from istanbul on the disappearance of jamal khashoggie a c.

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investigation into the death of jamal khashoggie has led to a car belonging to a diplomat. khashoggie was -- richard engel is in istanbul. and ashley parker, a reporter for "the washington post," ned price is with us as well, former cia analyst and nbc national security analyst. first, richard, what are police saying about the discovery of this car? >> so right now, i'm in front of this underground parking garage and police earlier today found a black mercedes, a black diplomatic car that is registered to the saudi consulate here in istanbul, it is one of the vehicles they have been looking for and they say

that it has been parked here since the 10th of october. and forensic teams in white jackets have been inside, they have been bringing ultraviolet lights. we are not allowed inside the parking garage, but they're conducting investigations and teams have been coming and going from this parking garage for the last several hours. but this car, a nondescript, car found in this business and residential area about ten miles from the consulate seems to be a center of activity. according to the turkish media, this car was left here on the 10th. so we know that khashoggie was killed on the 10th. then on the 18th. another vehicle came, went inside this same parking garage, stayed inside for 12 minutes and

turkish tv have put out images of this exchange. the person who drove that car into the same parking garage was carrying a green package, by the way he was standing, it looked like it was a fairly heavy package and he transferred it from one trunk to the other and left. not only was this car left here on the 10th, it was visited about a week later by another person who dropped off some sort of parcel. so the investigation is continuing here and in other locations as turkey is trying to uncover and find all the clues to what it says was a deliberate murder carried out by 15 saudi agents. >> and actually jared kushner just talked about saudi arabia and the crown prince. and kushner was asked what advice he has for nbs. here's what he said. >> the world is watching, this is a very, very serious accusation and a very serious situation and to make sure

you're transparent and to take this very seriously. like i said, we're getting facts in from multiple places and once those facts come in, the secretary of state will work with our national security team to help us determine what we want to believe and what we think is credible and what we think is not credible. >> so he says actually be transparent, but khashoggie was killed on october 2. it took saudi arabia until the 19th to even acknowledge he died at the consulate. is the administration still depending on the saudis to tell the truth? >> reporter: there's no reason to believe that the saudis are going to follow it based on their behavior since khashoggie went missing. this is a country that has been forced into each consequence disclosure kicking and screaming. the reason they have not been

upfront from the beginning, because the administration is sending mixed signals, it one thing to call for this investigation to be transparent. they're hesitant to take on saudi arabia, they're hesitant to take on this crown prince, the president has said as much publicly, he said that the nbs has been shown not to be involved in a public way, because he does not what about to plblow up the arms deal betwn the u.s. and saudi arabia. so these words, it's unclear how far they will push the saudis when they're not backed by muscular actions on behalf of this administration. >> the other thing he said in that interview with the post, i'm quoting, they're two young

guys, jared doesn't know them well or anything, they're just two young people, they're the same age, they like each other, i believe. what do you make of that? >> right, just two wild and crazy kids. >> in their 30s, that's all they have in common. >> one senior advisor to the president married to his daughter, one crown prince of saudi arabia. but the truth is, this jared kushner nbs relationship is one of the seminole relationships of this administration. it started early on, and the main reason that the president made saudi arabia his first stop when they traveled abroad. both the president and jared kushner believe that saudi arabia is the way to get to iran and to get peace in the middle east. far reaching effects on u.s.

foreign policy and how this administration approaches our relationship with saudi arabia. >> and the other thing that the president told "the washington post," and obviously there's been deception, there's been lies. but then he added about the crown prince, nobody has told me he's responsible. nobody has told me he's not responsible. we haven't reached that point. i would love it if he wasn't responsible. what do you make of that? >> he said there's been deception, there's been lying, 24 hours after he found the initial saudi explanation credible. so i think when you talk to people in the national security community. when you talk to people who know the saudi system, they will tell you that when you have a fact pattern like this, a kill team, two airplanes, at least 15 operatives. >> they just happened to have a bone saw with them. >> a bone saw, a body double with them as whie learned today from "washington post" reporting. i think they will tell you that

there's practically no chance whatsoever that crown prince bin salman had anything to do with it. if there are enough links to the saudi security establishment, but it is not too incriminating for the crown prince bin salman, what they want is for the status quo in the relationship. they want a slap on the wrist, they want some harsh rhetorical words from this white house, and to then go back to them, status quo, hat in hand, in many ways dictating our foreign policy in the middle east. >> they have had 20 days to come up with a credible story, and at least members of congress are not buying it. i have to ask you about the national security advisor john bolton who's in the middle east, delivering president trump's message, saying this e's

determi -- help people understand why they should car about this. >> chris, if you listen to the administration, they say it's because the russians has been cheating on this tree. and the obama administration actually came out and made that case, but what is also undeniable, is that by withdrawing from this treaty, the administration would again be doing vladimir putin's bidding. vladimir putin has long wanted out of this treaty. he hasn't wanted to rip it up. he wanted to places the onus on us to actually withdraw from it. so whether it's trump attacking our fbi, our cia, our department of justice, whether it's the president delivering divisive messages on twitter, and whether it's inciting vladimir putin over our own intelligence community. there was an alternative, to

work on counter measures, to come up with a case with our allies to stay in it, to put pressure on the russians, but that is not the option that the administration shows, much to vladimir putin's glee. >> and coming up, borderline, president trump ramping up his attacks on the central american migrant program. and people from the middle east are trying to make their way into the middle east with them. fact check next on "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. i landed. i saw my leg did not look right. i was just finishing a ride. i felt this awful pain in my chest. i had a pe blood clot in my lung. i was scared. i had a dvt blood clot. having one really puts you in danger of having another.

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the president and republicans have a consistent new attack on the campaign trail. raise alarms about the growing caravan of migrants in south america are heading north. are defying president trump's threats to send in the military if they don't turn back. already today president trump has tweeted about the caravan three times calling it a national emergency and blaming the democrats. joining me now, julia ainsley is nbc news security and justice

reporter. marianna, what are mexican authorities doing and what's going on with the caravan itself? >> reporter: the caravan is on the move again, we just heard a press conference by caravan organizers informing the thousands of people that they will be walking eight hours and that's their goal for today. i want to talk about the caravan organizers, what has been the treatment of the caravan by mexico? she says that she thanks mexico for their treatment because they're actually letting them pass. are they afraid that the caravan will encounter the military as

they move north? she says, chris, that mexico is asking for them to seek asylum in order for them to continue moving. but they think that sometimes that can be a trick to get them on busses and deport them back which is why some migrants do not really want to do that. >> marianna. thank you for that. julia, the president tweeted that there are quote criminals and unknown middle easterners mixed in this with caravan, what do you know about that and this has become a key rallying cry on the campaign trail. >> reporter: this is something that's getting a lot of people fired up. i do want to fact check that tweet today. for years now there have been people from all over the world who come up through that point, over the u.s.-mexico border. it's not just limited to people from south america but it's a

minuscule amount. there's nothing about this honduran caravan that people from the middle east are outnumbered. i did get some statistics, from fiscal year 2013, which ended at the end of september, there were 3,000 people apprehended at the border who are from the middle east and from africa. those are people known as special interest aliens, because of where they're from, it's unusual for them to be in that territory. but there's been 3,000 people who were apprehended at that border. you're really looking at .7%, less than 1% of immigrants crossing the board never 2018 who are from the middle east. and there's no indication that there's any in that caravan. and so that tweet is intended to rally up fear.

>> even there are only.7% from the east, there's no indication that these are folks who are affiliated with any known terror group, andrea mitchell, who when she's not doing her show is completely engaged. she said t-- what's your sense, mar rania, that this insurgent is -- i wonder in addition to the organizers what you're hearing from people on the ground, because i'm looking at these pictures. i'm seeing little kids who have an eight-hour walk ahead of them. >> reporter: and they walked for 20 miles yesterday, chris, this is a very difficult road. you see little kids trying to keep up. you see moms with newborns in their arms. you see pregnant women. what you hear from most of them, is that violence in central america, especially in honduras, especially after that contested

election last november, gang violence has increased exponentially. and that's buy most of them are here and embarking on this difficult journey. >> marianna and julia, thank you for joining us. and set in stone, why investigators are taking a closer look at roger stone's connection to wikileaks.

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"the washington post" reports that special counsel robert mueller's team is zeroing in on long-time trump advisor roger stone and whether he had any advanced knowledge of wikileaks plans to release hacked emails in 2016. and did he lie about that to congress. in a recent fundraising appeal, he said when i say i won't roll on the president, what i mean is i will not be forced to make up lies to bring him down. our legal analyst who is a former assistant u.s. attorney in new york. this "washington post" report says a grand jury has listened to more than a dozen hours of testimony that the fbi is analyzing electronic messages, all to see if stone knew about wikileaks plans to release those democratic emails. put it into context for us, why

could this be so important? >> reporter: first of all, i think this is an important reminder in general, just because we're not hearing a lot about the mueller investigation right now, doesn't mean they're taking a vacation, they're hard at work investigating everything including stone. the truth is that mueller -- well, we have known about roger stone likely having advanced knowledge of wikileaks for months now, even as far as the last mueller indictment. roger stone himself came out and said yeah, i think i'm going to get indicted. so the question is why is robert mueller and his team still so thoroughly investigating roger stone? is it really just to find out if he had advanced knowledge of wikileaks? i think the answer to that is no. i think there's even more going on here. that doesn't mean that roger stone is going to get indicted for something big, to put it in legal terms. but i think it means that mueller is certainly probing how

deep this goes. because just having advanced knowledge of the wikileaks ex-mails would not necessarily be a crime. the question is did roger stone not only know about it, but did he help facilitate it? did he do something to make use of it, weaponize it essentially. so i think the fact that mueller has been looking at this so deeply for so long tells us that this is more complicated in ways that we don't yet know, and depending on what that evidence shows, we may or may not find out. >> it's a fascinating article first of all and it points out a number of things that roger stone had boasted about being in touch with julian assange, in a 2016 speech, he talked about being in touch with assange, and he tweeted about something

regarding podesta and sure enough, weeks later, those, maimail mail -- emails were released. they talk about those connections, but knowing that it could be leading to something else, knowing how these investigations work, can you give us an idea of some of the tent kls that might be out there? >> i think the fact that we have already heard about mueller looking at electronic messages is key here, right? i mean this is not just mueller and his team hearing from witnesses, though that is important, but there is an electronic evidence here, an electronic trail and that is so hugely important to investigators, and investigators are good at trying to fig kbrur o -- figure out who's being credible and who's not. what mueller is probably trying to figure out is, yes, let's assume for the moment that roger

stone had advanced knowledge. who else had knowledge and what did stone do with that knowledge and how did the trump team, more broadly, if at all, utilized that knowledge. >> mimi roca, thank you so much. and president trump travels to texas to stump with his former rival. you're watching andrea mitchell only on msnbc. what?! that's - i find that crazy. it traces their journey from the mid-1800s from central mexico to texas. learning about the risks they took for a better life it gives me so much respect and gratitude. it just shed so much light in my past that i never even would've known was there. connecting 20 million members to a deeper family story. order your kit at ancestry.com

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you're the biggest liar, you probably are worst than jeb bush. you are the single biggest liar. >> i don't get angry often, but you mess with my wife, you mess with my kids, that will do it every time. leave my wife alone. zplt in t zplt. >> in the case of lying ted, he take tsz bible, he holds it up and he lies. >> this man is a pathological liar, he doesn't know the difference between truth and lies, he lies practically every word that comes out of his

mouth. >> let's say that these guys were not the best of friends. president trump and ted cruz have now forged a kind of bromance to rally today in texas where cruz is locked in a senate battle with rising star beto o'rour o'rourke. thanks to our panel. jeff, out on the campaign trail, we all heard it from both sides, this was often nasty, and yet here we see the president going to this rally in a race that a lot of people think and the polls suggest that ted cruz, i think the latest poll was seven points. so what's going on here? >> you're right, chris, they definitely are not the best of friends, politics, to use another cliche, brews strange

bedfellows. ted cruz obviously wants to maintain control of the senate. that's why he's to make sure that the single digit lead that senator cruz now has doesn't get any smaller than it is and potentially gets a little bit bigger. basely his job to turn out the republican base and what senator cruz needs in texas. >> do you think, charlie, that's what's going on here, that they're nervous? >> i think that they're concerned. it is an extraordinary scene and an indication of how the republican party changed under donald trump. i mean, i remember i was here in wisconsin when donald trump and ted cruz were going at it and, in fact, it's worse than you suggested before. >> let's show a couple clips and then go back to you on the other side and i want to go to what the president said on fox news in may of 2016. listen. >> his father was with lee harvey oswald prior to oswald's

being, you know, shot. i mean, the whole thing is ridiculous. what is this? right prior to his being shot. and nobody even brings it up. they don't even talk about that. that was reported and nobody talks about it but i think it's horrible. >> and then the president also retweeted a meme. we heard ted cruz responding to this making fun of heidi cruz's looks comparing her to melania trump. no big understatement here. i suppose that, you know, we have seen this before. we have seen people be critical of each other and one thing, charlie, to say lying ted cruz, a nickname for anybody but this stuff went beyond that. >> way beyond that. donald trump's buddy, his buddy at "the national enquirer" launched a smear campaign against ted cruz at the time. i talked to donald trump and i asked him do you think you might

want to apologize to heidi cruz and attacking her looks? well, we never got that apology and i think that's one of the most extraordinary things about it. donald trump has never apologized for what he said about ted cruz but apparently that's okay for ted cruz and what an indication of how transactional our politics have become and the degree to which republicans have been willing to swallow and look the other way, even when it comes to the most personal insults that you can possibly imagine. and by the way, you know, has donald trump changed? is he a different person from the time when ted cruz described him as a pathological liar? now it's apparently okay. >> kimberly, he is obviously in texas, a place where the immigration debate is always pretty much front and center but i think we can guess pretty easily that in addition to maybe saying nice things now about ted cruz and bad things for sure about o'rourke, he is going after the caravan and even

though the fact checks have suggested that some of the most tough things that the president's had to say are incorrect this is again something that works with the base and fires up his base. >> yeah. you can see from his twitter account the signals that you can expect when he is in houston tonight and in the two weeks leading up to the midterm elections. he is really going to hit on the issue of immigration. tweeting today without any foundation and there are no facts to support that even middle eastern folks are a part of this group of migrants heading toward the border when all the reporting from these people as they make the way north is these are people fleeing violence, they're fleeing poor conditions and trying to find better opportunities between where they are and the united states. so -- but you will hear that. you hear that as a threat to security, a danger. you've seen him tweeting about

people again without any foundation or facts about voter fraud. that's going to be happening and threatening to prosecute people which is seen by democrats as an effort to suppress the latino vote but these are things that he believes stirs up the base that will help bring people out to vote. particularly in states like texas. and that's what we'll hear from here on in. >> meantime, jeff, this "the new york times" memo. indicating that the administration is going to decide whether or not to recognize transgender people. according to "the times" the memo by the department of health and human services ordered agencies to revert to a binary version of biology. clear, grounded in science and in other words you're either born male or female. are you getting a sense of whether it's a real thing and

pursue? in any case, why the leak? >> well, on your first question, i asked this to white house officials earlier and they referred me back to hhs. they weren't giving any specific details on it. i think it is important to put the memo that "the new york times" is in context and he tried to roll back or the administration tried to roll back things that the obama administration set in motion. everything from the issue of where transgender men and women go to the bathroom and whether or not they serve in the military so it's consistent with what the trump administration has done before. >> coming two weeks and one day before the midterms. jeff mason, kimberly, charlie, all good to see you all. thank you so much. much appreciated. where charlie is, the president is heading to wisconsin, one of the places that he will be this week. we've got more ahead on "andrea mitchell reports." morning, but ruin my day.

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that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." follow the show online. you can find me on twitter. and ali is here for "velshi & ruhle." >> thank you for holding the fort last week. >> good to see you. >> you, too. it's monday, october 22nd. let's get smarter. >> this is one of those extraordinary days in american

politics. you have got trump, obama, biden on the campaign trail. >> this will be the election of kavanaugh, the caravan, law and order, tax cuts and common sense. >> it's all about donald. it is not about anything else. >> one question for you. and that is, are you fired up? >> the migrant caravan is growing as it marches toward the u.s. swelling to more than 7,000 people. >> i will seal off the border before they come into this country. and i'll bring out our military. not the reserves. i'll bring out our military. >> where are you going to fight? we're going to keep going. we're not going to stop. >> new video of cnn appeared to show a body double in istanbul. this person's wearing khashoggi's clothes, a fake beard, glasses and hours after entering the consulate. >> for the first time, saudi arabia has called this a murder. >> this was an operation that the a rogue